The Dead Knight In Progress
by Brandon Cobain
Summary: This is the tale of what would happen if Bruce Wayne tried to cure Jokers "Laughing Gas", and the results are the walking dead.


The Dead Knight

Bruce Wayne, the pinnacle of all human attributes, is still trying to best the Clown Prince of Crime. Always has the Joker escaped attempts at capture (but even when he is captured he finds a way to escape). "The clever devil is more intelligent than the so called 'World's Greatest Detective'", these thoughts have been slowly driving the millionaire to the depths of insanity. It has never failed that when he gets close, he finds a happy corpse, yet it seems to laugh at him, as if to taunt him even further, as if it still has enough life to laugh and laugh and laugh. He has always hated the look on the faces of those "lifeless" corpses, because they were more of the Jokers tools. Ever since he was introduced to this gas he has been slightly interested in its contents. It would be another challenge to find out what it's made of….and more of a challenge to make an antidote. So without anyone being the wiser he took a sample of what was on the unfortunate victims face.

Later, in the lab, Bruce runs the compounds through his super computer. Upon seeing its contents he searched the computer for the anti-effects, and he was successful in finding them. Now the problem was to put these chemicals together and test them. Luckily Bruce had these chemicals in his inventory, he wondered why this step was so simple…but he continued. It was then that he realized that it was 6:00 in the morning and he had an important meeting in about an hour, so much to his dismay he had to stop the experiment. So he told Alfred to leave the chemicals as they were so that he can have the same layout.

After sleeping through the meeting Bruce rushed home to find the antidote as fast as possible. He enters Wayne Manor and quickly made his way to the cave. Once inside the cave he started mixing the chemicals, and he was successful. The only problem he had was that he had nobody to test it on, Alfred offered but Bruce refused…so the only thing that was left was to be his own personal guinea pig. "I have a dreadful feeling about this sir", "I do too Alfred, believe me, but this is the only way I can hope to stop Joker". Alfred unwillingly went back to his room after being told by Bruce (because Bruce didn't know how this would happen and didn't want to risk it happening to Alfred if it all went wrong). He put this compound in a syringe and prayed to the Lord Almighty that it would work. He then injected himself, and as he did he felt like he was slowly dying. He felt as though his heart was stopping and he was growing hungry, hungry for something he had never had…flesh. It was then that he knew why it was so easy, because they were all from a cult that had experimented with "Zombies" that he stopped a few months prior.

Bruce staggered with great difficulty to Alfred's room. When he got there Alfred caught him and then helped him to the bed. "Sir what happened?!?!" "Chemicals, killing me, didn't work" " Please sir you must hold on" "I'm sorry Alfred, I Love you…." Alfred just sat there with Bruce in his arms crying, he couldn't do anything else, just weep for the loss of the Dark Knight. While he was sitting there he remembered when he was younger, he remembered when Mr. and Mrs. Wayne were still alive, yet he felt that Bruce was moving. When he looked down he saw Bruce's eyes were open. Although, Alfred could see no life in the eyes of his Second son, they were blank, but he ignored that. Just as Alfred was going to rejoice Bruce lunged forward and began devouring Alfred. Alfred was no match for him and could do nothing but scream, scream at the sheer horror.

Bruce continually bit his former butler and surrogate father. After five minutes the newly made zombie just stopped, he stopped because Alfred was a zombie too. They both got up and headed out the door… towards Gotham. They were stumbling to the city when somebody noticed Batman walking down the road. He went over to greet the hero when he noticed that he was walking oddly, "Batman are you alright?" then they attacked, now Gotham had three zombies headed for it. The farther they went the more victims they had caught in their wake. The new zombie population was now booming, and still headed directly for Gotham.

In Gotham Commissioner Gordon gets a call from a frantic officer, "Commissioner, Commissioner!!! THERE ARE THESE THINGS, HORRIBLE THINGS!!!! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY?!?!?! GET THE FU-YOU SON OF A- THOSE FUCKING BASTERDS BIT ME!!! NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" "JOHNSON? JOHNSON? DAMN IT WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS?!?!? GET ME A HELICOPTER OUTSIDE OF THE CITY AND BLOCK THEM OFF AT ALL COSTS!!!" Little did he know it was too late, they had already passed Gotham's city limits, they were in and there was no stopping them.

It is hard to believe that anywhere in Gotham could be relatively (actually entirely) unaffected by the ensuing catastrophe, well the next thing will be really hard to believe. Old Arkham Asylum is the only place that people don't live even relatively close to, and you would think that it's abandoned…well you were wrong. Now there is an image of a man with a painted face and his lovely assistant. It's the Joker and Harley Quinn(and of course the henchmen)! Imagine that, the villain at the beginning of the story is now the only living person (with other people)!

Joker observes Gotham and a puzzled look comes across his face. "Harley" "Yes sugar?" "Where the hell are the people in old Gotham?" As she looks at him in a confused manner he hands her the binoculars and sees a disfigured man with no arm just shuffling along the road. "Mr. J I think I see a zombie" "Harley have you gone as insane as yours truly" "Take a look for yourself" Joker then proceeds to look and much to his surprise he saw a zombie. "Where the hell did his arm…oh there it is by the side of the road, should we give him a hand?" "Oh Mr. J you're so funny" "Don't patronize me Harley or I'll feed you to my new pet zombie" "What pet zombie Mr. J?" "The one Joe is going to get for me, isn't that right Joe?" At this point Joe (a random henchman) was trying to avoid this task when he was given the choice to either get the zombie or get the gas, he immediately obliged.

After several hours of contemplating how Joe would (or had) die they hear a knocking at the door. Amazingly the previously incompetent Joe had brought back a zombie. "Well, well, well doesn't he look lively" "Thank you-""I meant the zombie" "He looks cute in a dead kind of way, can we keep it, huh, huh, huh?" After a very ridiculous argument they came to the conclusion that they were going to keep it anyway…and that his name is now Zombie Zeke. As it turns out, though Joe had been bitten by Zeke "Please Joker you can let me go" "And where's the fun in that? I want to see how long it takes to turn and run some 'tests', boys tie him down!" At this point Harley was excited, because they now had not one but two pet zombies, Joker responded with "How's about we make it three, I think zombie Harley sounds pretty good" she then ran to a cell and avoided being eaten even if Joker was kidding (which he probably wasn't).

Joker sat and watched Joe slowly die and turn into a zombie as he enjoyed a good laugh accompanied by popcorn. After several minutes it was official that Joe was a zombie. All Joker knew about zombies was that they ate flesh and had a voracious appetite for it, and that is when he wondered "Was Joe even his real name…ah who cares". Right around now a normal person would try to find a cure and stop all this…like I said a NORMAL person. "Harley, it's time to feed Joe and Zeke get someone to do it" after picking a random henchman they wondered what took so long. They entered the mess hall (it was actually just a small hallway but it was called the mess hall because the zombies would eat there and scatter the body parts Joker also called it that because he found it funny) and saw that the henchman was missing both hands. "I guess he bit the hand that feeds…BOTH OF THEM" after having a good laugh Joker thought to himself "if they keep eating my staff I will be in trouble" so he got a gun and popped the "Handless Henchman" as he called him.

It has now been a week since the breakout began and Joker is still having a difficult time having fun. "It's so damn BORING, there's nothing to do" so in a fit of rage Joker hit the five remaining henchmen in the face. This gave him a small amount of joy followed by boredom, so it helped nothing and just pissed off the henchmen (well in all reality the henchmen were still afraid). To pass the time and avoid further boredom Joker would throw a henchman into the mess hall for five minutes and watch as they ran around in circles. "What do you call an idiot running in a circle while being chased by a zombie….? FAST FOOD"

A dreadfully boring month has now passed by and the Joker's boredom has driven him insane (well more so than usual). "OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! I HAD NO IDEA THAT IT COULD BE THIS BORING!" right around now the Joker has now almost completely depleted his henchman, in fact he only had one (he was called Bob, not his real name it was only how Joker knew him). "Bob are you a smart henchman or did I hire you for your brute strength?" "I'm one of the strong ones" "Oh well, all that counts for nothing, but you wanna hear a Joke first?" "What are you going to do to me?" "There's a serial killer who kills people in a white tuxedo, and when he is finally caught by the cops they ask him if he had any regrets and he said 'My only regret is that I didn't wear a RED tux!" he follows this joke by shooting Bob because he was of no use to the Joker.

While Joker shot the last of his henchmen a walking nightmare drew closer and closer. It was Scarecrow. He wandered into old Arkham only to look for a place to hide, but first he had to clear out its current inhabitants…So he first injected Harley Quinn and much to his surprise it worked…

As we all know Harley Quinn only lives to please and aid the Joker therefore her nightmare is not only to be ignored, but HATED by the Joker. (Up until now the Joker has always been cold but has been warming up to her and even gave her his first voluntary hug). "Mr. J, Mr. J, STOP IGNORING ME!!!" (Naturally Joker wasn't even in the same room as her because Scarecrow locked her into a cell to go insane) "Get the fuck away from me you STUPID WHORE! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT I JUST USED YOU TO GET WHAT I WANT!?" "I know deep down inside you can love me!" "HA HA ME?! LOVE YOU?! And people say I'M CRAZY!"


End file.
